Sometimes I wonder if Jesus Christ knew what he was talking about. He once said, “The poor will be with you always,” and, yes, there are poor people everywhere and their lives become more desperate every month. But are they “with us”?
I’m in Washington, DC this week; poor people are everywhere, performing menial labor – the “jobs Americans won’t do.” Some of these poor are immigrants, illegal or otherwise, many were born in this country, many born in this city. There’s a building boom in the city; high-rising condominiums, nightclubs and new hotels. Low-income housing and small businesses that trade with poor folks are being pushed to the edges of the city, across the Anacostia River to the parts of town where middle class and rich folks rarely go, unless they’re lost.
Numbers generated by the government and private organizations tell us the gap between rich and poor grows wider every year and more people are pushed to the poor side of the ledger. So Jesus waight about the permanence of poverty, but with zoning laws, gated communities and valet parking we have become clever about making sure they are not “with us.” We have made the poor invisible, even as they wash our cars and haul away our garbage. Still poorer people than these make our clothes and grow our vegetables, but we’ve sequestered them thousands of miles away.
It’s comforting not to have to see the poor. When a CEO defends his multi-million dollar salary by telling us how he “builds value” for a corporation that makes – hair dryers? copy paper? – we stand a better chance of believing him if we surround ourselves with hair dryers and copiers and are not reminded that someone’s creeping through the southwest desert so he can send money home to his family for food.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Five hundred miles north of here, in Burlington, VT a program called Neighborkeepers is getting underway. The idea behind the organization – maybe Jesus had a hand in this, I’m not sure – is to turn this trend of economic compartmentalization on its head. Neighborkeepers recognizes that poverty is as much a cultural and social issue as an economic one. Some families are born into generation after generation of poverty because no one has given them the social tools to be anything but poor.
Should it be surprising when we read the occasional article about a million-dollar lottery winner who is “cursed” by the prize money and ends up with more troubles than he or she had before? The lesson of those stories is supposed to be that money can’t buy happiness, but perhaps another lesson is that it takes more than money to move from one social class to another in America, much as we fancy ourselves a “classless” society.
Neighborkeepers is a simple idea. Neighbors (in the larger sense, these folks don’t live on the same streets) volunteer to meet on a regular basis. Some are poor, some are middle class or wealthy. Guest speakers appear to lead facilitated discussions about topics we all deal with – education, food, insurance, entertainment. In the course of these gatherings, people get to know each other, become friends.
Things happen when people become friends. We trade information. “Your son’s in fifth grade and struggling with math? My daughter’s in eighth grade and she’s a math whiz, maybe she could give him some extra help.” We build trust. “You’re looking for a better job? I know someone who needs a reliable employee.”
Neighborkeepers is not about “middle-class values.” Early in the process, participants learn that everyone in the room has the same values. We all want to be free from anxiety, keep our homes safe, give our children opportunities we didn’t have. Neighborkeepers is not a giveaway, everyone in the program, in addition to gathering regularly, takes part in programs that give back to the community, donating gifts of time and skill.
Perhaps Jesus is not the best analogy for Neighborkeepers. Perhaps it’s Siddhartha Gautama, the Indian prince whose family kept all knowledge of poverty and suffering far from his sight, so much like today’s cosseted suburbanite, until the day he sneaked out of the palace to witness earthly suffering and was moved to seek the life of compassion that turned him into the original Buddha.
The purpose of Neighborkeepers is to break those palace walls, to bring people into community from all directions. Perhaps the most radical result of Neighborkeepers can be seen on a downtown street when two people, each wearing the outward marks of different classes, stroll and talk together as friends and neighbors.
My Neighbor’s Keeper
Sometimes I wonder if Jesus Christ knew what he was talking about. He once said, “The poor will be with you always,” and, yes, there are poor people everywhere and their lives become more desperate every month. But are they “with us”?
I’m in Washington, DC this week; poor people are everywhere, performing menial labor – the “jobs Americans won’t do.” Some of these poor are immigrants, illegal or otherwise, many were born in this country, many born in this city. There’s a building boom in the city; high-rising condominiums, nightclubs and new hotels. Low-income housing and small businesses that trade with poor folks are being pushed to the edges of the city, across the Anacostia River to the parts of town where middle class and rich folks rarely go, unless they’re lost.
Numbers generated by the government and private organizations tell us the gap between rich and poor grows wider every year and more people are pushed to the poor side of the ledger. So Jesus waight about the permanence of poverty, but with zoning laws, gated communities and valet parking we have become clever about making sure they are not “with us.” We have made the poor invisible, even as they wash our cars and haul away our garbage. Still poorer people than these make our clothes and grow our vegetables, but we’ve sequestered them thousands of miles away.
It’s comforting not to have to see the poor. When a CEO defends his multi-million dollar salary by telling us how he “builds value” for a corporation that makes – hair dryers? copy paper? – we stand a better chance of believing him if we surround ourselves with hair dryers and copiers and are not reminded that someone’s creeping through the southwest desert so he can send money home to his family for food.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Five hundred miles north of here, in Burlington, VT a program called Neighborkeepers is getting underway. The idea behind the organization – maybe Jesus had a hand in this, I’m not sure – is to turn this trend of economic compartmentalization on its head. Neighborkeepers recognizes that poverty is as much a cultural and social issue as an economic one. Some families are born into generation after generation of poverty because no one has given them the social tools to be anything but poor.
Should it be surprising when we read the occasional article about a million-dollar lottery winner who is “cursed” by the prize money and ends up with more troubles than he or she had before? The lesson of those stories is supposed to be that money can’t buy happiness, but perhaps another lesson is that it takes more than money to move from one social class to another in America, much as we fancy ourselves a “classless” society.
Neighborkeepers is a simple idea. Neighbors (in the larger sense, these folks don’t live on the same streets) volunteer to meet on a regular basis. Some are poor, some are middle class or wealthy. Guest speakers appear to lead facilitated discussions about topics we all deal with – education, food, insurance, entertainment. In the course of these gatherings, people get to know each other, become friends.
Things happen when people become friends. We trade information. “Your son’s in fifth grade and struggling with math? My daughter’s in eighth grade and she’s a math whiz, maybe she could give him some extra help.” We build trust. “You’re looking for a better job? I know someone who needs a reliable employee.”
Neighborkeepers is not about “middle-class values.” Early in the process, participants learn that everyone in the room has the same values. We all want to be free from anxiety, keep our homes safe, give our children opportunities we didn’t have. Neighborkeepers is not a giveaway, everyone in the program, in addition to gathering regularly, takes part in programs that give back to the community, donating gifts of time and skill.
Perhaps Jesus is not the best analogy for Neighborkeepers. Perhaps it’s Siddhartha Gautama, the Indian prince whose family kept all knowledge of poverty and suffering far from his sight, so much like today’s cosseted suburbanite, until the day he sneaked out of the palace to witness earthly suffering and was moved to seek the life of compassion that turned him into the original Buddha.
The purpose of Neighborkeepers is to break those palace walls, to bring people into community from all directions. Perhaps the most radical result of Neighborkeepers can be seen on a downtown street when two people, each wearing the outward marks of different classes, stroll and talk together as friends and neighbors.
© Mark Floegel, 2006